Halloween aftermath

My fearless, brave daughter has become clinging and fearful following a tour of a neighbor's halloween haunted house (garage). She did pretty well, and the people inside were good about toning it down and even waving to little Kate, but one scene inside depicted a mother with baby doll whose insides were being eaten by zombies-- intestine flying, etc. I know, pretty gross, right? Well, it's really affected Kate. Even though she knows it was make-believe, and that zombies aren't real, she's been talking about it non-stop ever since.

Probably the worst part is that she's been waking frequently at night. Like, at 20-30 minute intervals. It's not been every night, but became more frequent over the last weekend. Now we're working on an incentive chart for sleeping all night and it's improving. She came up last night, but went back to bed when I told her, instead of throwing a 45 minute fit like she did Friday night. Poor thing. So then she's tired, and even more grouchy during the day. What drama!

Kate's even started saying things like, "Halloween is far far away, right mommy?" or "I'm never going in a haunted house again!" Trust me, we'll be skipping the haunted house next year.

Sweet Sam

I know this will shock his Mamaw, but sometimes Sam is not so sweet. He is very sensitive, and mostly sweet, but sometimes he can really let loose. The difference between he and Kate is that he feels horrible after he's been mean, and it doesn't bother her at all.

Tuesday night, Sam and I were reading before bed. First, he read me some non-fiction book from his school library and I said, "Wow, that book is about as old as me!" Sam said, "You're not old mommy! You're just the right age to be a mom." I know he didn't say I was collegiate or anything, but still, that was pretty good.

Then when I tucked him in, he said, "Mommy, I'll always love you and be glad that you're my mommy, even when you're mean and stuff. I mean, even when I grow up, I'll still love you." I took the opportunity to assure him that no matter what choices he makes, I will still love him too. Super sweet Sam.

Birthday Extravaganza

Kate turned 4 last week! She was very excited, but transitioned to telling people she was four and a half approximately 12 hours into her new year. Poor Kate, her birthday always gets crowded by Halloween. She celebrated at Jo's the Tuesday before because of Halloween parties on her birthday. She was supposed to bring birthday treats to preschool on Monday before, but we were still on vacation, so we had to make those up the following week. The day of her birthday was also Sam's big football game at the Chiefs training facility, so we celebrated with our extended family and friends by noshing at Red Robin afterwards. No wonder she thinks her birthday is Halloween!

We invited several of Kate's friends to a party at the Flip Zone, where she takes gymnastics. We lucked into having the owner, Mr. Chad, working the party, so it was well-organized and the kids had a great time. They played games, played on the trampoline and inflatable slide, had cake and opened presents. Kate started a trend of jumping off of some padded stairs, into a triangular pad that was leaned up against the wall, and falling to the floor laughing. I'm not sure what kind of technique is required in this (possibly insanity), but the kids did it one after another for quite a while. Fortunately, all that padding means no one got hurt!

We had our family birthday party at the house afterwards, which was low-key and manageable with only 4 kids at the house instead of the typical 10-15. It was nice to be able to celebrate on the 30th, instead of combining with Halloween, though that did give us something to do during the party!

Kate asked for Barbies, and got several, all of which remain unopened. Her favorite gifts were a white board and play computer for her "office", a letter tracing Leap Pad toy, and clothes. One friend gave her bath tub toys, which I thought was clever, and she got a huge art kit that she's dying to break into. She really isn't a toy kid, which makes her really hard to buy for. I hate to think Christmas is right around the corner!

Happy birthday to my big girl, Kate!